The U.S. Court of International Trade today remanded for reconsideration the U.S. Department of Commerce’s most recent redetermination in longstanding litigation over steel nails from China imported by Target as part of tool kits. This is the fourth remand of the case. Since 2010, Commerce has maintained that such nails are outside of the scope of the antidumping duty order. That position, however, has been successfully challenged by PKR’s client, Mid Continent Nail Corporation – the largest producer of steel nails in the United States. After two earlier CIT decisions in favor of Mid Continent,
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit last year ruled that Commerce could only exclude tool kit nails by overcoming the presumption that such nails were covered by the antidumping duty order. To do this, Commerce must use information publically available when the antidumping duty order was issued. The CIT today holds that Commerce’s latest attempt to exclude tool kit nails failed to comply with the CAFC’s instructions. You may view the decision here.
